“Four months. Four days. Sixteen hours,” Wren repeated. He took the knife out of Syder’s belt and tossed it. “Or today. It’s up to you.”
He let go. Syder made a grab for the gun. Before he could get it, Wren brought his boot down and pressed it into the dirt. Syder recoiled, clutching his wrist to his chest. He flinched away from Wren and scowled at Ledger instead.
“I wish I’d cut your throat that night instead of letting the doctors have you,” he spat in Ledger’s face. “I’ll see you in Hell.”
He turned and staggered back to his car. His wrist made getting the door open difficult, but he finally managed it and fell into the driver’s seat. The car engine coughed to life, and Syder drove erratically away.
“Should have killed him,” Ledger said, wiping his face on his sleeve.
“I did,” Wren said. “I will. In four months.
Ledger swayed unsteadily as he tried to catch his balance. Everything in his head felt slow and gray, and stretching his mind beyond the present moment was hard.
“How did you find me?” he asked.
Wren caught him before he could fall. “You were dying,” he said, pulling Ledger’s arm over his shoulder. He kissed Ledger’s forehead, and a pleasant, numb warmth spread out from his lips. It dulled the ache a bit. “But you’ll heal. You’ve got time now.”
Something clicked in Ledger’s head.
“You said he had six months the first time,” he said.
“Did I?” Wren asked. He walked Ledger over to the fence and propped him up against it. “It’s four.”
The tender, pulped texture had gone from Wren’s face. He’d been right; he did heal quickly. The bruising was still there, though, just faded, and the scabs had dried up into scars. He was still pretty.
“How’s Earl going to feel about that?” Ledger asked.
Some of the warmth faded from Wren’s face, and he looked away from Ledger to stare at the house. The flames painted new, temporary shadow tattoos on his face.
“I didn’t do you a favor,” Wren said, “if that’s what you think. I’ve just kept you alive for Earl to kill you at his leisure.”
“Maybe,” Ledger said.
He fished in the pocket of his filthy chinos and pulled out a shabby, crumped bit of card. The picture had started to crack and peel, but he could still make out the gaudy cover of Death’s book. Ledger had been worried that brief, bright epiphany at the car had been knocked out of him earlier. No. It was still there.
“I think I know who has Earl’s death,” he said, closing his hand into a fist around the card. “I just need to work out where they’ve gone. So, Earl might not get to crack my bones after all.”
He pushed himself up off the fence and headed for the front yard. Wren let him as he bent down to grab his jacket from the ground. Ledger started well, but after a handful of steps, he bumped into the side of the house and had to hang on to it to stay upright. There was a dead bird at his feet, he realized. It must have been caught in the fire.
“You’re not going to have time, Ledger,” Wren said, quiet and grim. “There’s less than an hour left. It took me too long to find you.”
Ledger knew that. Not the exact count, but that his contract was coming due. It felt like… air pressure on his whole body. He closed his eyes and tried to make himself give up. It didn’t work. He pushed himself off the side of the house.
“I think you’re going to have to drive,” he said.
Wren didn’t do anything at first. Then he snorted and tucked himself back against Ledger’s side, one hand clenched around the waistband of Ledger’s chinos. “I wouldn’t let you drive my pickup even if you could stand up straight,” he said. Ledger snorted and watched his feet as they walked. Wren tightened his grip on Ledger’s hip to get his attention and added, “I’ll get you as far as I can.”
There wereno painkillers in Wren’s glove box.
He’d growled about time running out but still stopped at a gas station to grab the strongest thing they kept behind the counter.
Ledger angled the rear view mirror so he could see his forehead. Both of them—the double-vision was persistent. He closed one eye and squinted. Only one forehead somehow made it look worse. The skin was split in a raw, peeled-backYover the livid, tight knot that had come up on his forehead. It didn’t hurt when he poked it gingerly with a finger, not since Wren had touched it, but bruising fanned out in a blotchy stain that spread up into his hairline and down to his eyebrows. He had two black eyes to complete the look, his left eye full of blood from one corner to the other.
If he made it past the equinox, Ledger promised himself he’d go straight to the ER. Time to heal was great—particularly given the alternative—but he looked like the object-lesson character on an episode ofGray’s Anatomy. If he managed to pull off getting out of Sutton alive, he didn’t want to drop dead two months later.
Ledger turned the mirror back around. For now, he’d be glad it only hurt on the inside of his skull.
Wren stalked out of the gas station with a bag swinging from one hand. He climbed in the driver’s side and handed it off to Ledger.
